I’ve been reflecting on the kind of writer I am after re-reading Venkatesh Rao’s Tips for Advanced Writing while gathering my list of writing resources. Rao separates writers into thinking-first writers (who care about the ideas) and writing-first writers (who care about the beauty of the language).

I’m very much a thinking-first writer. I love language, don’t get me wrong, but the core piece of a piece for me are the ideas. That’s why I’m convinced that these books are the same.

Image of The Cabinet and Strange Beasts of China

The Cabinet and Strange Beasts of China both focus on tales of strange and wonderful denizens of their country. There’s a single character charged with keeping those stories and a shadowy figure out to get them. The same$^{1}$.

People always ask me how I read so many books (I read like 400 in three years) and a big part of why I’m able to do that is that my brain tends to reduce books down to the point where all the rich difference between these books ends up as a footnote.

It makes me a stronger thinking-first writer to do this reduction naturally. Helps me find connections between all sorts of disparate fields.

Sometimes, I feel like I’m missing out though. That it’d be nice to feel a tree instead of just seeing forest. I guess I’ll have to cry about it on the mountain of books I’ve read.

  1. I know these aren’t the same book. The wonderful creatures are different, the framing of why they’re gathering stories is different. Also it’s a Korean author and a Chinese author, so saying that the books are the same feels just a little racist of me.